Girls extend their conference winning streak to nine games

— The Gentry girls’ soccer team played a great match last week to kick off the second half of the season, defeating Berryville in a hard fought 4-0 match.

“Both teams played well, said Gentry coach Dan Childress. “We took a 1-0 half-time lead with an excellent effort by junior striker Kendra Boyd to beat the keeper on a 50-50 ball in the box. The score remained 1-0 throughout the second half until our girls pulled ahead with three more goals in the last 20 minutes of the match.”

Kendra Boyd had three goals in the night, to bring her season total to 19. Sophomore forward Kanisha Eckart added another goal (9 on the year).

The win brings the team’s record to 6-1 overall and 3-0 in conference. It also extends the team’s conference winning streak to 9 matches.

Three important conference matches were scheduled for this week, against Decatur, Huntsville and Bergman. On Tuesday - after press time - The girls play Decatur on their home field at 5 p.m. The boys play at 7. Gentry plays at Huntsville on Friday, and Bergman comes to Gentry for play at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday.

The Gentry boys lost to Flippin 2-1 in overtime at Flippin.

Exchange student HaoCui scored the game tying goal on a across from Lorenzo Figueroa.

“Flippin was a very physical team and it bothered some of our younger players,” said boys coach Chuck Jones.

The boys played Berryville at home on Friday.

“Berryville has a very good soccer team this year. The Bobcats are one of the better teams in the state,” Jones said.

The Bobcats scored 3 goals in the first 15 minutes of the game.

“We did a poor job of staying with our mark to begin the game,” Jones said.

But the pioneers then settled down and played a much stronger game in the final 65 minutes.

Sports, Pages 7 on 04/07/2010